Ready to start expanding, the creators of smartphone app ASAPP! have launched an equity crowdfunding campaign on Seedrs to raise £110,000.ASAPP 4ASAPP! is a free app that is available to iOS and Android devices that allows businesses to target the right people in your neighborhood or town. It uses the phone’s inbuilt GPS technology to determine the user’s location to create a virtual perimeter (or Geo Fence). These fences have a diameter of 5 meters to 5 kilometers and can be drawn from around a corner shop, a football stadium or a city center.

Smartisan announced recently it closed the funding round at RMB 180 million (US$29 million), placing its overall valuation above the RMB 1 billion (US$161 million) mark. The company didn’t reveal where the money came from, but thanked previous investors in the announcement.

WHAT happens when a multinational firm decides to shutter its Irish operation? Do staff just filter off into other multinational jobs? Or can indigenous entrepreneurs emerge? It's the ultimate post-IDA question: are multinational outfits actually creating an ecosystem that can be self-sustaining?

Among the freebies included in Samsung’s just-released Galaxy S5 was a new app from Lark, a health startup that’s been pretty quiet for the past year or so.

In fact, co-founder and CEO Julia Hu told media website TechCrunch “pretty much in stealth mode” as it worked on the new app. The vision, she said, is still the same — the company is still trying to provide “personalized health coaching” that’s aimed at people who are less interested in counting their steps and more in general health and wellness.

If you're anything like the average phone buyer, when you get a new device, your old one just sits in your drawer unused and unloved. SK Telecom thought of something much better to do with outdated gadgets.

The company gathered up devices from the past 30 years and connected them to a computer. Using the phone's start up sounds, they created a cacophony of noise that sounds exactly like music — maybe even an orchestra.

This creative kind of upcycling is the perfect way to remember the 30th anniversary of the Korean telecom company!

Secret and Whisper, the current favouruits of the anonymous messaging market, are all about broadcasting your innermost thoughts or general gossip in a feed format.

But the founders of Truth created an anonymous messaging app that sends private missives to people on your contacts list. It's incognito one-on-one messaging between friends.

When you send a "truth," you are assigned an anonymous username and avatar (one of an assortment of playful owls). If the recipient already has the app, the message will show up in the app's inbox. If they don't, a text message will display part of the "truth" and prompt the recipient to download the app.

Philippine game development startup Altitude Games received US$275,000 seed funding from mobile content provider Xurpas founder Nix Nolledo, gaming company Level Up! Games co-founder Philip Cahiwat, and several other investors. The funding will help the startups springboard to create mobile games for the Philippines, and moving forward, the Asian market. Altitude Games intends to create original mobile games “with casual gameplay that’s easy to pick up and play,” says Altitude Games creative director Luna Cruz.

Founded by five friends who have backgrounds in the gaming development scene across Southeast Asia, Altitude’s mission is to create original “mid-core” games. Altitude CEO and co-founder Gabby Dizon, together with the startup’s engineer director Marc Polican, and Luna met at Filipino gaming companyAnino Games. Technical director Paul Gadi and art director Chester Ocampo got their start creating mobile games for Symbian phones, and later went on to work at various studios.After around 10 years of slugging in the games industry, the team is now looking to apply their experiences into their own venture. They’re currently creating their first game, which will initially be launched in the Philippines. Dizon adds:

“With the number of gamers and smartphone users here, we think the Philippines be a great test bed before we launch throughout the rest of the world. We’re focusing on our first game and making sure it’s really fun and polished. We’re starting small, but we’re hoping to hit it big.”

Its first game, the title of which hasn’t been revealed yet, is set to be available on Android before the end of the year.